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By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter
For some individuals, growing tomatoes can be a challenge.

Space and time are some of the top reasons why people do not grow them.

Another reason is experience and while tomatoes are known to be an easy plant to grow, there still exist brown thumb gardeners that fail at this task.

To help those individuals with brown thumbs and those who say they do not have the space, a simple gardening project has been designed and it all starts with getting to know your local pizza company.

One may wonder why a pizza company, well the answer is simple.

Pizza companies go through a lot of tomato sauce and the buckets that the sauce comes in are perfect for planters. They are plenty deep and the plastic is food grade, which is very important when one is using plastic containers to hold plants that will be eaten.

The other day, I saw a commercial on TV for a fast food restaurant advertising breakfast.

This commercial was produced as if this restaurant had invented the most important meal of the day.

I had seen this commercial before and had laughed at one particular item.

This item was in my family’s history and served to my mom and her best friend during the depression.

This fact made me think of how much things have changed and how much they have remained the same.

My mother grew up in a large city in Kentucky. Her parents raised rabbits and ducks for food but nothing else. My mother’s grandmother was the gardener. Her yard, which was right next to my mother’s, was filled with nut trees, flowers, vegetables and herbs. Summers were spent picking Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re in the northern hemisphere, I hope the winter is easing a bit and allowing you to start thinking about planting your tomatoes.

But if you’re experiencing weather like we’re having in southern Italy, though, it’s still time for canned tomatoes and hearty dishes like this one – one of my absolute recipes from my Italian grandmother:

Last October Kira Hamman wrote about some tomato-related crafts you could work on this fall and winter as you wait for tomato growing season to start again. It’s that time of year again, so I thought I would scour the net for some more nifty tomato craft projects.

If you missed this the first time, be sure to check Goodness. I’m not even quite sure what to say about this project. It’s basically a tomato with one large eyeball. Who doesn’t want that in their house, right? (I do want one, actually!)